The war in Gaza will not necessarily be concluded with an agreement, but with an unwritten arrangement. What are the assumptions on which it should it be based?
First, we need to look at the map. Gaza is at the doorstep of Israel. On two out of its sides, Gaza borders with Israel. The third border is the Sinai desert of Egypt, and the fourth is the sea. Gaza cannot be governed, in the long run, by a movement whose ideology totally opposes Israel's mere existence. The raison d'etre of this movement is the "resistance" — a euphemism for terror and violence. Given this ideology and Israel’s military might, the 1.8 million Gaza Palestinians are doomed by Hamas leaders to be permanent victims. But the geography tells us something else: As far as energy, water, environment, health care and commerce are concerned, one can't separate Gaza and Israel. There is no life for Gaza without a link to Israel.
Even more than before the war, Gaza will badly need rebuilding and recovery after the war. Whoever receives the funds donated for Gaza’s reconstruction will be the real ruler there. If Qatar, Hamas’ primary monetary backer, remains Gaza's financier, Hamas will be stronger after the war than before it. (We see where the money given to Hamas since the last war went: missiles and tunnels.) Potentially, Gaza could be a pleasant place to live in and to visit. But not under the Palestinian version of the Taliban.
Continuation of Hamas' control of Gaza inevitably means that its military wing will be preserved. Sooner or later it will resume its operations against Israel, while Gaza’s civilians bear the devastating consequences. Hamas' military wing will not voluntarily hand over its weapons. If Palestinian Authority (PA) soldiers, loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, will be deployed at the Rafah border crossing with Israel, Hamas will fight them. In fact, until the brutal, merciless takeover of Gaza by Hamas in June 2007, Abbas' Presidential Guard controlled the Gaza-Israel border crossings. As deputy minister of defense in charge of relations with the Palestinians, I personally observed the Presidential Guard's activity through my binoculars. They strictly inspected the trucks heading to Israel loaded with agriculture products from Gaza. They meticulously searched for terrorists and explosives. They did so until slaughtered by Hamas' terrorists in June 2007.
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